I started my high school Science Research Program not understanding the title of a journal article, and three years later, after I had finished the program, I realized I wanted to do research for the rest of my life. In this program, I researched Alzheimer’s disease and its genetic factors, which served as the foundation for my interest in quantifying gene expression in neurodegenerative diseases. During my undergraduate career, I worked in  Dr.Weickenmeier’s soft matter mechanics lab, where I continued to research  Alzheimer’s disease by investigating the propagation of misfolded proteins and how that leads to brain atrophy. This experience taught me how to use coding, data analysis, and image segmentation tools such as FREESURFER to solve biologically related problems. I always wondered how these tools, which are generally used for mechanics and electrical engineering, could be applied to understanding genetic changes. There is significant ambiguity regarding the genetic causes of neurodegeneration and the mechanical mechanisms that follow. However, if one were to quantify the effects of mutations by measuring any electrochemical or mechanical differences, one could quantify the expression of that genetic change. I hope to earn my P.h.D to expand my current knowledge of the genetic causes of neurodegenerative diseases by quantifying  the expression of genetic mutations.